In this interview with Matrix, Ambassador Tasneem Aslam, one of Pakistan’s finest diplomats, a former ambassador who has been very upfront nationalistic and who even spoke out in the presence of her bosses when it came to protecting what she considered as national interest. She explained the hypocrisy of major powers regarding issues of human rights, and shared her experiences of going against all odds in making some decisions. Below excerpts from the interview:
Matrix: Does geopolitics compromise the rule of law, good governance and issues of integrity of leaders with which major powers have been dealing with? Though major powers do assist developing countries in improving rule of law and good governance but does this support conflicts in developing countries like Pakistan?
Ambassador (R) Tasneem Aslam (TA): Ostensibly the Major Powers are committed to human rights, rule of law you hear about that in their engagement with every government not just in Pakistan, Egypt is another good example. They prefer to deal with strong individuals not necessarily representing the public aspirations and public sentiment former Egyptian president Morsi was an elected leader but the major powers did not accept him and covered it up by saying that there was an Arab spring, a movement against Morsi where people subsequently people rose up against him but we know how these movements are run in the developing countries and then CC came in. So in Pakistan also we have had interludes of democracy and then military rule.
Matrix: What do you say of the nations which routinely issue state of human rights reports about countries like Pakistan but themselves are involved in similar actions like internationally impermissible Guantanamo bay prison for Al-Qaeda and Taliban, the above rep prison in Iraq and several others, don’t you think there is an inherent contradiction?
TA: They are the biggest violators of human rights, I mean go back to the emergence of United States of America as a country it’s seeped in blood. We talk about U.S being discovered by so-and-so, no it wasn’t a virgin continent discovered by the white Europeans. It was a populated place and where are those people today? There was a genocide, so a country that was established through a genocide and in whose foundation there is blood, you can’t expect much from them in terms of commitment to human rights. There are individuals who are very committed to this cause, ordinary people as a nation they are very humane and kind people but the ruling structure is very cruel.
Matrix: Most of the western countries led by the US often talk of the human rights, rule of law but they themselves subvert it and start looking the other way when it comes to their own national interests, is that true?
TA: They do this to perpetuate their power. What they are currently doing with China, the policy they are pursuing is aggressive, and it’s not because China is that evil state that U.S needs to take on. If we look at America’s history since becoming a super power, they usually take up a similar course of action all the time. They identify an enemy that could possibly pose a threat to them in future and they have go after it.
First they did it with the Soviet Union and when USSR was disintegrating, they were already identifying the next enemy. If you read the writings of neo-cons and others in early 90s they were talking about Islam as the next enemy, and we saw what happened subsequently.
Now that they have demolished what was left of the Islamic Muslim world, China is the next enemy. You hear them talk about China’s wrongdoings and make sermons about respect for human rights and equality of people, while in their own society people are not equal, and even have censorship now. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram all these big engines of communication can remove people for expressing their thoughts about several things e.g. speaking up against the government’s flaws, criticizing Israel etc. and this is being practiced in India too.
Matrix: Do you think that part of the blame also goes to former presidents, prime ministers and their associates? Speaking of how the Americans the marines in particular were coming in and out of Pakistan with impunity.
TA: Some certain things were negotiated, I think primarily through military channels but they were specific. For instance, we know that the air force stood its ground on what they will give and what they will not give but this information was not shared with the whole of the government. I don’t think the foreign office knew about the details of few things when it became operational. I’ll give an example Noor Khan air base, it was not part of the operation enduring freedom but since this information was not shared with all the relevant people, the base was used for transit trade despite it not being allowed.
Matrix: So the Americans basically used the Noor Khan base without authority but apparently, with the collusion of certain people on ground, were they also bringing in weapons and other surveillance systems without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities?
TA: Once I receive a call from the air force base that a flight has arrived with cargo on board, I looked at the permission request that had come in from the U.S embassy and it didn’t mention any cargo, I said okay confiscate it. They started protesting that our diplomatic bag has been confiscated. I told them that diplomatic bags arrive on the Islamabad airport not on the base, and secondly the upper limit for a diplomatic bag is 250 kg and it has been communicated to you by our protocol division again and again so an 18000 kg cargo can’t be a diplomatic bag. The same incident happened another time as well, when we didn’t only confiscate the cargo, but also opened and checked it and found surveillance equipment and some weapons etc. US embassy justified by stating that this was meant for Iraq and it landed here by mistake which was illogical because Pakistan doesn’t fall in the US route for Iraq.
Matrix: It looks like you must have annoyed many officials, your bosses and even diplomats by bringing up these issues and by standing up to them, is it so?
TA: Yes, the US ambassador called me a terrorist as well, so I said I’m a terrorist with terrorists (the conversation was on a lighter note). I worked for Pakistan and I would give lot of credit to those officers at the air base who were very vigilant and felt that zeal to stop this kind of abuse.
Matrix: What do you say to the fact that the Americans particularly the marines got so emboldened when they felt like being on in their own country and without any regard for Pakistan’s sovereignty?
TA: They got everything they wished for, so they thought that they put Pakistan under on the defensive and by making claims about illicit money transfers, and Taliban’s association with Pakistan, I think we should have stood our ground.
Matrix: Can you tell us how do these contradictions impact your diplomacy and the perceptions basically of a country for example about a country that has spent 2.6 trillion dollars in Afghanistan over 1.5 trillion in Iraq but does not enjoy a favorable position in these countries I’m talking about the US so what would you say to that?
TA: If you barge into somebody’s house and tell them I’ll teach you how you should live your life, no matter how much you spend, the residents of that place are not going to appreciate you. Moreover, count the lives number of innocent people killed despite being non-violent. Saddam may have been a cruel ruler but he guaranteed people’s lives and livelihood. Whereas now, Iraq is in three parts and it’s still not peaceful they have ripped apart these societies they have killed people and the money they spent is spent on armaments not on development. If the Americans leave Afghanistan to its own devices, all those English-speaking sophisticated people who you have been interacting with will disappear from there. And though they apparently spend money where they fight, they get back even more e.g. oil from Iraq, changing Afghanistan from a poppy-free country to a country with large-scale poppy cultivation.
Matrix: This also brings us to the issue of counter-radicalization, radicalization, and terrorism. Would you say that these are things that basically were raised as an industry on the back of military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan?
TA: If you look back at the BMENA Broader Middle East and North Africa) initiative, which started from North Africa till Pakistan and Afghanistan, promoting redrawing of borders and reshaping of society. US redrawing of borders was the military action, they have changed the shape of those countries. Re-shaping of society had to do with changing identities, unfortunately in Pakistan take up a foreign narrative, tweak it a bit and it becomes our narrative. Today we find many young people apologetic about their identity and their religion, because this has been drilled into their heads that if you are a practicing Muslim, you are a fundamentalist. Which is not a good thing, religion is a personal matter and it’s not for society.
Matrix: What would you say about the Indian actions against social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook etc.? They have officially asked these organizations to take down the content that is considered as inimical to the government of India.
TA: Let me give you another example why Pakistan is pushed around and India is not, it’s about this human rights agenda which is not actually human rights agenda, which has entered into our society and produced people who will do their bidding, espionage, and even sabotage. INGOs are another example, there is plenty of evidence that many INGOs were either involved in espionage or sabotage or basically trying to undermine Pakistani culture, values, our way of thinking, and national cohesion. We took action and they came down like a ton of bricks and influential European and western leaders came to their rescue that don’t touch them, and we said these are non-governmental organizations let them fight their case why are you jumping in? One European minister said in the parliament where we do not have intelligence resources in Pakistan our INGOs step in and they collect and provide information to us. India threw out 9000 INGOs just like that and not a squeak, so I think a part of the blame lies with us also, we buckle under pressure.
Matrix: You once intervened when the foreign minister was being interviewed in India and you told the anchor to stop it what was that can you tell us something about that?
TA: It was not something extraordinary, Anna Goswami you can imagine how he behaved because he had this reputation. I was a spokesperson and accompanying the foreign minister in that capacity so I was filtering and accepting the interview requests for interviews, so he approached and he requested, I said look you are rather rude and that is not acceptable to us if you interview the foreign minister you will have to be civil with him and he said yes I will be and you will have no complaint and if I don’t be, I said I would cut the interview if you and he said absolutely I will be. This was soon after the samjhota terrorist attack where they killed more than 40 Pakistanis in the train terrorist attack and not just that, later on it was found that their army serving army officers were involved and in that atmosphere he kept attacking Pakistan that you are sponsoring terrorists and this incident was also launched by Lashkar-Tayba, so I told him to behave, he continued so I took the mics off, and sent him out.
Matrix: It was an interesting conversation with Ambassador Tasneem Aslam, she stood up where was needed and she thinks that external interference also leads to compromises on the national sovereignty and hence undermine the rule of law and good governance. Historically, we did have personalities who made blunders which resulted in loss of national interests, but there were also people within the system who challenged this blatant abuse of authority and permission, which helps our foes.
